Frustrated by a lack of informed and honest review websites covering a wide range of electronic music, I write them myself.

Sunday, December 11, 2016

E-Mantra - Silence

Altar Records: 2012

A decade past, when Israeli full-on was dominating the psy market, a few plucky producers started taking the scene back to its goa roots. Naturally, this tickled the fancy of old schoolers bemoaning the commercialized fate of their cherished music, but the revisited sounds of crunchy acid and Indian tonal scales never led much of resurgence. Still, it was enough for fans of vintage goa that anything of the sort was welcomed, giving high praise to the likes of Khetzal, Ra… really, anything released on the Suntrip Records print.

E-Mantra is among that label’s consistent acts, plying his trade among the compilation market before making his debut in 2009 with Arcana. For a goa trance record in the modern era, it was received well enough, and anticipation was high for a follow-up. So of course Mr. Carpus took a left-turn towards the realms of psy-chill for his sophomore effort, releasing Visions From The Past on the fledgling Altar Records in 2011. It… wasn’t met with quite the same enthusiasm, but hey, that proper goa trance album everyone was expecting (Pathfinder) surfaced later the same year, so no harm no foul. Undaunted by that lackluster reaction to his sojourn into downtempo, E-Mantra released another such album with Altar the following year, Silence. And again the year after that, Echoes From The Void. And again after that, Raining Lights, with just one additional goa album in all that time (Nemesis… ooh, I think I see what he did there!). E-Mantra now has more psy-chill records under his belt than goa CDs, a development I’m sure almost no one expected while hailing him as one of neo-goa’s champions. Maybe that was Mr. Carpus’ plan all along!

Coincidentally, these repeated ventures into the domain of psy-chill has made E-Mantra one of Altar Records’ core acts. I never intended to hold out checking his work on DJ Zen’s print, as I reasonably liked his scattered material on the label’s compilations. Just another one of those ‘I’ll get to it once exhausting all the super-sexy looking options’; it happens. As for why I picked up Silence in particular, it was for no better reason than I was in a blue, underwater mood while sifting through Altar’s material, and got everything that fit the oceanic theme I was vibing on. I’m jonesing for that Water compilation review just as much as everyone else, yo’!

Silence is definitely a stronger offering of psy-chill than E-Mantra’s first venture into the genre, Mr. Carpus finding a firm footing within its style and tropes than simply slowing down his goa sounds (alleged complaint of his first). There’s pleasing, flowing melodies (Since You Were Gone, Shadow Skies), groovy dub-heavy numbers (Ecouri, Night Walker, Prelude), pure ambient pieces(Passing Through), and amalgamations of all three (Touching). Samples, tasteful. Songcraft, skillful. Excessive wibble, nonexistent. Yep, Silence has everything I’d look for in a psy-chill album. Just wish it stuck in my head better after it plays. It’s frustrating when some music ends up like that.